The bitter road of the childhood

of 800 kilometers across the native, occupied by fascists earth there passed an associate professor of SGU Nikolay MARYEVSKY when to it was not and six years

my military childhood began winter of 1941. In one of late evenings of December when behind windows the frost cracked and the blizzard howled, home for several minutes the father ran. Put the train iron trunk on a floor / were then such at drivers of engines instead of present cases/, and somehow dejectedly told:

- Collect, mother, me to the road … one!

For us, children, this trunk was magic - we always found in it all delicacies: that sausage, and that candies or gingerbreads. We rushed to a trunk and this time. And the father embraced all of us together with mother and did not tell, and exhaled:

- Everything, family! Engines evacuate together with crews, but without families. Departure in half an hour …

Mother, having nestled on the father, began to cry, and we are children - all three hung at it on a neck and began to wail:“ The folder, dear, do not leave!.“

- my Children, cars for evacuation of families destroyed by bombing, and there are no others and Germans in Hatsapetovke any more … Farewell, my dear, obey mother, you keep together, - the father … edified - Here to you at the beginning, - he stood in the corner of a half-bag of flour and stretched to mother a round roll of bread, and itself from powerlessness began to cry … So we for the first time felt

and understood what is war. It in a flash for a long time or maybe forever separated us from the closest person after mother, - from the father. And this flour fed us then whole half a year. Mother hid it under matrasik in a crib. And when invaders came to search, she stacked the youngest of us Gena there and loudly exclaimed:“ Krank, krank - typhus!“ And Germans umatyvat carelessly since. terribly were afraid to catch.

What here evacuation of families when Hatsapetovka - that in ten kilometers from our city of Debaltseve, and on streets was already thumped by ruptures of shells, one of which buried under our summer kitchen, but did not blow up, and we survived … Then, after war, sappers dug out it, took away to the country and destroyed.

… All night long on city streets there was a fight. And in the morning we woke up in occupation … I remember in a pre-dawn frosty haze a scratch of wheels of enemy wagon trains, opposite to horror, from terrible cars, guns and tanks. Later, when I studied in the ninth grade, our unforgettable teacher - the historian participating in capture of Berlin, the captain of artillery Alexey Yakovlevich Rudskoy told us the truth about war. We learned that by order of the Supreme Commander I. V. Stalin was evacuation on the East not only hundreds of the industrial enterprises is organized, but also hundreds of engines completed with crews in hitches on 10 - 12 pieces with the cooled coppers at speed were driven through Rostov and Mineralnye Vody to Baku, and then on ferries through the Caspian Sea to Krasnovodsk, the present Turkmen - Basha, and further through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan even to Irkutsk.

And in a month my father with the intact engine appeared on East - the Siberian railroad where its crew, as well as hundreds of others, drove days trains with arms and staff to Moscow. And then these engines were thrown to Volga, delivering under the opponent`s fire ammunition and the Siberian shelves at first to protection of Moscow, and then Stalingrad. The father told us more than once as on the way from Kamyshin to Stalingrad the German pilots hunted for trains which they drove. But parovoznik of a Stalin appeal which was also my father and rejoiced the corresponding badge, skillfully maneuvering, deceived fascist experts and delivered ammunition and people in fortress on Volga. But about it the separate story is necessary.

Together with May to us not only the brightest time

of spring, but also our main holiday - the Victory Day always comes! And not only for us, citizens of the Soviet Union, and now - Russia, but also for millions of people in the world.

When the Great Patriotic War began, I was not also five years old. But I know what is fascism! My uncle Boris Borisovich Borisov wrote verses and died 18 - ti years old near Krasnodar in fight with fascists, protecting the Fatherland.

And in general the fascism claimed 50 million lives. The incalculable number of people became cripples. Thousands of the cities and villages of Europe and our Homeland were turned into the ashes …. Only in our native Stavropol invaders shot and destroyed over five thousand people. And almost as much innocent people were ruined in the cities of Caucasus Mineralnye Vody region.

One of my grandfathers locomotive driver Vasily Terentyevich Lipovka remained in an underground in one of the cities of the Luhansk region in Ukraine. He was a communist. Its live fascists dug. And here my father, too the driver of the engine, Semyon Petrovich Maryevsky never consisted in any parties. But in the most difficult times for the country was at fiery boundaries of Stalingrad... Now it is called Volgograd. However, the whole world knows and remembers not Volgograd, but the Battle of Stalingrad, not Sankt - the St. Petersburg, and the Leningrad blockade. And the outstanding Russian journalist and the writer Victor Nekrasov called the severe, honest, truthful and not forgotten book “In Entrenchments of Stalingrad“. So give also we, and together with us our children and grandsons, we will remember it, to respect our past and to equal on sacred symbols.

… I, to the boy, was not also five years old when came 41 - y year. I looked at war by children`s eyes, but I know what is fascism. Because well I remember how the plane with a swastika literally chased us with mother when we made the way to yet not burned down wheat field to collect the escaped cones. And I still see the face of the fascist expert warped by hunting passion, its plane so low blew over the field, watering us with a lead rain. But did not get, and we survived.

Spring of 1942 in my native Ukrainian city of Debaltseve occupied by Hitlerites, people swelled and died of hunger. Especially we suffered, children, days standing idle in turns at the German, so-called catering establishment for a skilly = soup. When my younger brother Gennady to whom was not then four years, asked a bread piece for the invader, was hit blow a boot in a stomach … And recently I visited now farm of Degtyaryovsk known to all country, thanking and not quite ready putinsko - to a chernogorovsky water supply system, and met there Nikolay Vladimirovich Pipko to whom now for 70! In 1943 fascists in search of guerrillas broke into their house and began to torture his mother. The boy rushed on them and, having received blow a boot, for the rest of life remained humpbacked. No treatment after war helped, and Nikolay Ivanovich carries all these years a fascist tag, courageously overcoming an illness, participates in farm life as can.... And how many children, my one-years, were sent by fascists to painful death to Dachau, Auschwitz, Buchenwald … And horrors of Salaspils … And the Belarusian village of Khatyn burned together with people! All this in memory national.

Fascists in panic were afraid of guerrillas and often arranged round-ups and searches. Once they broke also into our house. The SS-man hlestanut a lash with an iron tip my six-year-old sister. This mark remained with it for the rest of life. And still I remember how Germans burned all neighboring quarter of houses together with people because suspected presence of guerrillas there.

And here one more unforgettable episode. On the suburb of our city behind a railway embankment there passed the front line. At the beginning of March one hundred our seamen of whom to death Germans were afraid and called them “shvarets katets“ - a black cat attacked and occupied the city. Invaders in panic ran. And in a day seamen departed for a front line as without reinforcement could not keep the city. The running Germans and Romanians came back to Debaltseve, and SS-men began searches.

Never I will forget a horrific image of threat of execution of the grandfather Pavel whom fascists accused that he is the person who lost a leg even in World War I - allegedly carried away the bicycle from the German warehouse. In the yard of our house they tortured the grandfather, having forced it to the knees during March snow. The SS-man already cocked of the gun. And here the Germans fleeing the day before the city - lodgers returned and interfered with punishment. Ded survived.

… Closer to summer of 1942 our troops receded to Volga and to the Caucasus. Grocery stocks at us came to an end, there were nothing to eat. And in the Caucasus, in the village of Ivanovskoye of Libknekhtovsky (now Kochubeevsky) the area there lived parents of our mother - the grandmother Dunya and the grandfather Thomas. And mother decided to reach together with us there - together it is easier to endure trouble.

Ded Pawee built to us a two-wheeled wheelbarrow in which mother put simple belongings, and among them, by the way, there were two sound output coats from gray sukna:odno - father`s and the second - our mummy. Then already, in 1943 - m mother exchanged these coats for a cow - the firstcalf heifer who was called Ninka, and she rescued us from hunger by the milk. The cow was exchanged at Kalnitsky since the senior Stepan Kirillovich came from the front wounded in a leg and it was appointed the chairman of the Village Council. and it decent had no clothes. And the chairman`s wife Darya Abramovna, and for us the aunt Dasha, had to put on decently too. Here also they changed the firstcalf heifer for these output coats of our parents. To them it is good and we received the wet nurse. Though at Kalnitsky mouths was more - only the children eight souls moreover relatives. Now here Stepan and Darya`s grandson - the chairman of present collective farm of Chapayev.

Well, in September we started on on a way. Though “we moved“, - it is loudly told. I was during that time about 6 years old, the sister of Valais - 7,5, and to the brother Genya - 4,5 years. We moved sometimes, sitting in a wheelbarrow - the vehicle which was dragged by mother. At locals, and sometimes and asked food from invaders. Most often it was done by the brother Gena who learned to mutter in German. Our way lay through Volchany, Hatsapetovka, Amvrosiivka, Red Sulin, Novocherkassk, Rostov - on Don, Bataysk, to Kushchyovk, Kropotkin, Armavir, Nevinnomyssk. And it is neither more nor less 800 kilometers. We left Debaltseve on the first of September. As in school, And Ivanovka reached after the Cover, by the end of October. Means there were we on the occupied territory nearly two months. More than a week lived on the thrown farm since mother caught a cold and strongly was ill. And when recovered, moved further.

I remember the last kilometers of a way. Having spent the night at kind people in Nevinnomyssk, started further in the morning. To Ivanovka there were a little more than ten kilometers. Day was solar, warm. There was an overdue Indian summer. After the suburban Nevinnomyssk settlement of sherstomoyny factory the road went uphill. In a wheelbarrow to go got to nobody, we walked and tried to push the vehicle, helping mother. I remember, I so weakened that could not even walk and took seat on the road, in dust. And when the vehicle, having reached rise top, was behind a hillock, I nevertheless got up and started wandering uphill.

Of course, from me told I remember not everything in details. Mother then more than once in detail remembered our “travel“ in the long winter evenings when we are children of war - at the paraffin stove learned lessons, and the grandmother Dunya and the aunt Zhenya listened to her stories. And such words she said that tears were rolled. I so will not be able. And dictophones during that time were not. And now here is not present any more and mother who made the real feat, rescuing us, the children. Therefore I tell as children`s memory remembered.

And children`s memory it generally such tenacious. That will flash as a summer summer lightning. Will flash and will light the picture, and then suddenly will go out. And so and at me now, already gray-haired, and heart of young, that six-year hlopchik - continually in memory something will gleam and will highlight some episode of that long-distance time, and then suddenly will grow dim, will tighten a haze … But happens and so that some as now speak, plots, are not forgotten, do not disappear, do not grow dim, and stand in memory as if it was yesterday. So noticeably, so sharply and as painfully, as farewell to darling. Forever!

Here is how, for example, to forget it?! After a month of our hard way on the earth occupied by fascists we reached one large Kuban farm. Germans were not visible. Spent the night in by miracle the remained structure of collective-farm crew. And were knocked in a gate of the extreme house in the morning. In appearance strong, not under a cane, under a tile. The dog began a bark in the yard. There was an uncle, spravny such, happy, red-faced, in a cap - a kubanka and in the German green riding breeches. As then we learned from people, it appeared, the head local, Germans appointed. The brother my, four-year-old Gena it is learned zaprichitat:“ The uncle, give, please, for the sake of Christ though bread a piece though a kartoshinochka“.

So he was taught by mother. And the uncle gyknut on us, and ordered the dog who jumped out from the yard:

- A ram, and well - take these krasnopuzy … the dog with bark threw

I on us … also it Was

, unfortunately. And it is impossible to forget it as my today`s associate on collaboration does not convince me of delights and noble influence on the person of a private property. That uncle in a kubanka, probably, then just felt the owner, the truth by means of Hitlerites, and here some applicants and he, having called us for some reason krasnopuzy, nauskat a dog.

And still I remember … When we already reached Ivanovka where there lived our grandmother Dunya, washed us from a two-monthly lep of dirt in an oak ten-bucket barrel with zelenchuksky water, fed and put to bed. And next morning under a pillow found bread crusts in the brother. The kid suited a grist, having clamped in a cam croutons, uncertain in tomorrow.

Here it was at us the military childhood. And God forbid, that similar time repeated …

the legs we went, of course, not all road. Not that mother! She stepped all burdensome way. And felt sorry for us. Will put all three in kuzovka of that two-wheeled carriage, itself will be harnessed in shafts and drags it together with load as a nekrasovsky horse. Will become exhausted, will fall by a roadside, will take rest and again at way. And so all 810 versts on the native earth occupied by enemies. And 30 years were it during that time only!

In Rostov, however, when we spent the night on descent to Don waiting for a crossing, the boy of years of fifteen was beaten to us, it is from Red Sulin. His family - the grandmother, mother and sisters - died from a direct hit of a bomb to the house While it was in the field, getting any food, there was an air raid. Came back home, and instead of it - a funnel. There is such destiny. Also there was nobody to bury. Moved to Rostov, met us. Called him Victor. And the surname was double, sonorous, memorable - Is severe - Bronsky. It also helped mother to drag a wheelbarrow and us to Ivanovka.

Victor lived together with us at our grandmother. After occupation worked in collective farm. And then - in 1944 - m - it called up for military service and he participated in storm of Berlin. After war, having come to us for a while, Sulin in hope to find any of relatives went home in Red. We long corresponded. And then communication oborvalasno I well remember this fellow, the dark-haired Don Cossack, with the same impudent look, as at sholokhovsky Grigory Melekhov.

After occupation mother worked in collective farm of Chapayev. In the same place, in Ivanovka. And then we all family moved to Nevinnomyssk where we in locomotive depot transferred the father from Ukraine. And it still for many years worked as the driver there, and in the late fifties the last century residents of Ivanovo elected him the deputy of regional Council of deputies of workers. The brother Gennady became sea captain, the sister Valya - the agronomist. and I am a journalist. Our parents, unfortunately, already died. They are buried in the native Ivanovo earth which became to us, in the same place, where the grandfather, the grandmother and the native aunt Zhenya is my first teacher. I, of course, am there and not only in easter days, I bow to their graves, and sometimes I dream as though in reality, my mother, her kind and tender, tired-out and caring hands, its light as the sky, blue eyes and as then, in war, I hear her prayer, its voice:“ Rescue and pardon, My God, my children!“ I told only small part from our military childhood. The wounds put to children`s soul with war do not heal. And therefore to me, now to the gray-haired person - the father, the grandfather and even prto aded, there is a wish to remind such not really pleasant detail from our today`s fussy it is market - trade reality. We should not forget that in society there are people who confuse Trojan war to the Great Patriotic War, nothing is known and not wanted to be known about a great world feat of the Soviet people which rescued mankind from fascism. And is even such which try to distort our history. And from a TV screen and in life lie to young people, soiling dirt both a feat of the people, and glory of his commanders and leaders. Such public should give not only on hands, but also on brains too.

Yes, it, unfortunately, is. And therefore let`s tell constantly the younger generations about difficult years of our military childhood, about sufferings and courage of our mothers and fathers, grandfathers and grandmothers, about their Great Victory over the bitter and artful enemy, about their light memory. Let`s protect, store and increase greatly together glory of our Fatherland, a name to which - Russia!

And I very much hope that at those sacred moments when 9 - guo Mai “Requiem“ sounds, in that traditional moment of silence, memories and griefs at each citizen of Russia heart will tremble, and he with gratitude will remember those to whom it is obliged by life. Give all together we will bow to great those years, we will support Iosif Kobzon and we will sing in multimillion chorus: